Assuming I hear of most rock climbing (not hiking, tourist off path, etc.) it appears the fatality rate is about 1 per year?
As said by David, fear rules because risk is perceived to be very high (in fact, it is probably quite low for the "average" rock climber using appropriate gear correctly).
Therefore, the logical answer is "safety precautions" (they don't take much skill!) - we do them because we are scared...

An unsafe act does not necessarily lead to an incident. Incidents depend on a window of opportunity: multiple unsafe acts / conditions have to align at a specific moment in time for an incident to realise. That's where we have to manage our risks, to prevent that window from opening.
To put this into perspective: its cool to solo, but when doing so you must realise that you have already undone the window's latch and the margin of error has become virtually non-existent.

Justin, yeah its a numbers thing and with all the beginners entering the game I'm just wondering how many of them has a good example to learn from. Its all good when an experienced climber takes shortcuts along with a calculated risk but a beginner seeing it may just see the shortcut as standard.
Now South Africans have a reputation for taking shortcuts on almost anything.
I would rather have a beginner taking shortcuts on the double redundant system he is taught, than taking shortcuts on the shortcut demonstrated by an experienced climber which the beginnner perceives to be standard.

Personally I think we are just lucky.

I am amazed that cyclists never debate helmets. Neither do whitewater kayakers. Do people skydive without a helmet? What makes rock (sport) climbing so safe that the majority of climbers still feel that helmets are uncool?
I am not saying we should suddenly start enforcing helmets on all climbers. I just think we could save lives by being slightly more aware of safety in the climbing community.
In my opinion this is even more important when experienced climbers are active where beginners are around. Even more so when those beginners are children.

people I climb with always wear helmets, else they get a klap on that unhelmeted head...

meant to say rock climbing DEATHS above...

If events include serious injury, then my impression is they are also low.
(I will take some time to check out the stats!)...
My impression is that canoeing is about the same (1 death per year)...
My impression also is that mountain biking is perceived to be safe but, in fact, has a high rate of fairly serious injury (broken arms, collar bones, etc) but not deaths.

You can get all statistical and complex about this, but impressions are important in influencing how people behave. Scared people are careful people.

Hey Bruce, I will climb with you anytime!
Its the climbers (and people in general) with no perception of fear that scares me the most.

Yeah, we could get all technical, but that would take tremendous effort and will probably not add that much value. However, if we do not take our safety serious as a community, others could pressure us to do so.
Much better if we can, as a community, just consistently demonstrate safe behaviour from the start and avoid all the red tape that comes with a reactive approach.

Scuba diving is a very good analogy:
when I started "training" SCUBA at university in the 70's the training essentially consisted of a series of hurdles - we put the fear of god into them and if you fell at any one you were out. Weeded out the poor swimmers and careless.
Now you have a "hotel pool" course, get driven to a dive site, get a whole bunch of expensive, complex gear which you don't understand dumped on your back and your hand is held continuously...
If anything goes wrong a million regulations will ensure that some-one did not check a tick box somewhere and they get nailed. The regulations do nothing for personal responsibility.
Makes diving a pain in the ass and very expensive.
Good for rich people, not good for me.

I agree.
Regulations is a real pain in the ass. But it is unfortunately what happens when an industry cannot maintain safety by themselves.
i.m.o. if we want to avoid climbing becoming regulated we have deomstrate that we take safety seriously, or else it will eventually be forced onto us.

From my experience in any activity the group most probable to get injured are the highly experieinced people, and for a simple reason: complacency.
2nd highest are the absolute beginners who are at the mercy of the experienced guys.
Those falling somewhere inbetween rarely experience bad injuries because they know how to keep themselves safe, and still have a healthy respect for the risks in their activity.

Thus for experienced guys becoming complacent, and beginners its to a great extent luck that keeps them safe.
For the middle group preventative measures keep them safe.

Regulation is a double edged sword which serves little meaningful purpose in proper climbing. To the extent that regulations create the perception that because you (or the instructor/guide) have “ticked box” A, B and C that you therefore capable of doing something you would otherwise never have ventured to do on your own they are worthless. All they do is to create a misplaced belief that you can climb X or hike Y because the book said you can if you did “A” course or have “B” gear or its safe because its bolted or you have a guide. The end result is people accessing areas that they really ought not to be in under the misconception that they can because they “ticked the boxes” and the regulations provide some form of guarantee.

In this way people who should be afraid of the inherent dangers in true mountaineering climb routes, fall off, or get lost and fall off, and die because their perceptions of risk are misplaced. And what is the inevitable result. The community gets terribly upset and decides to regulate the matter (extreme activity) even further (read make it “safer”) by putting up route markers, or via ferrate’s or staples or bolts or prescribing a guided ascent. Ridiculous!

In this way the misconception of safety through regulation is perpetuated even further, more people participate that should not and inevitably more will perish.

Reinhold Messner wrote an article entitled “A Passion for Limits” which includes amongst others the following statements:

Outside in the wild areas mountaineering must be dangerous so that we can learn. Danger is a filter which stops people from going where, perhaps, they should not go.

Danger, exposure, cold and difficulty are part of our mountain experience. These are what we fear and enjoy and from them we learn. Don’t sell them out. Its so easy to sell out by building a cable car in the mountains but by doing so we steal isolation and exposure from the mountains.

So, if the dearth of fatal accidents in climbing is due to a healthy fear and respect of the mountains and acknowledgement of ones own ability so be it, that’s the true order of things … not the misconceived notion that we can all be heroes, winners and get a prize or whatever other sanitized belief our commodity driven society is so desperate to believe in.

a few thoughts (interpret it as you wish):
i. the regulations are already there. they are just not applied / enforced in our sport.
ii. As long as people dont start killing themselves too often, and as long as the families of the deceased dont invoke the OHSAct, we will not become regulated.
iii. We can further ensure it does not happen, by promoting safety and setting the example. Thus we demostrate our ability to act in a safe manner.
iv. People are already (without formal training or proper apprenticeship) learning climbing basics and ridding themselves of the fear of heights in climbing gyms, then think they know it all and charge into the mountains. The graffiti and litter are testaments to that. These people dont know how to clean, because they were never exposed to it. They dont worry about a helmet, because they climbed in the gym without one. They dont know any better.
v. increasing numbers of people at the crags increases the probability of accidents occuring.
vi. The experienced among us should lead by example, and in a positive way guide the inexperienced and ignorants towards safety awareness.
vii. If we fail, accidents will happen more and more frequently.
viii. Next step the government starts applying regualtions.

The regulations are to protect the landlord, the guide and the instructor against ignorant people, and
to protect the inexperienced climber against ignorant guides, instructors and landowners.

Nobody want to see regulations in our sport. Me included. I work with regulations almost on a daily basis and really dont want to be confronted with them over weekends too.

So, lets all be safe without regulations, then there will be no need for it to be applied to us. Let's not leave it in the hands of luck.
PS: anyone makes mistakes. If anyone see me at the crag and feel I am unsafe. Please speak to me about it. That's how we learn. As a matter of fact, dont only apply it to me, but to anyone you come across. Lets be nice about it though, no need to piss each other off in the process.

Guys face it we need more regulation. An example: I think Brisbane might have the safest climbing environment (but it might just be that the land owners and lawyers feel safe, I'm not so sure if this kind of regulation actually impacts much on the real safety of climbers).